


anata

by Serpensortia_parapluie



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dimension Travel, Don't copy to another site, Identity Porn, M/M, Pre-Slash, Time Travel, founder's era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23069713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serpensortia_parapluie/pseuds/Serpensortia_parapluie
Summary: A series of unrelated Naruto semi-permanent WIPs, posted in order to free them to the world at large.1. I tried making something for KakaObi Week 2019. I didn't get far.2. Tried using an ominous statement generator to generate ideas.3. Attempt at a 'Team 7 goes to the Founder's era and fixes everything' fic4. SNS, Sasuke/Naruto moving soulmark soulmates5. Naruto stumbles sideways into a Konoha that's familiar, but not his.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Kudos: 70





	1. PRE-SLASH, KAKAOBI, TOBI, SUKEA, IDENTITY PORN

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve decided that I have too many WIPs going, especially since a lot of them are stalled and haven’t gone anywhere in a long time. I’m doing some spring cleaning.  
> I’m going to do as I’ve seen several authors do, and post some tidbits. Unfinished, unpolished ficlets. I’m not saying any of these ideas are permanently dead, but I just haven’t gotten the energy or any ideas for them in a while and I don’t want to let them languish forever either. This might become part of a collection called “Murdered Darlings”, after the literary advice to ‘kill your darlings’. There’s going to be a couple of different works in the collection, if I figure out how to make a collection. Loosely collected, shall we say.  
> The title is ‘anata’, a romanji reading of the word. To the best of my understanding, it directly translates as ‘you’, but it has connotations of being used for one’s spouse or significant other, most often as a wife to her husband.  
> This is marked out of ten because if I ever get that far, I may start another file. I haven’t decided. Each chapter will be specifically marked with the tags that belong to it.  
> I do not own nor am I associated with the creators of Naruto, fairy tales, lore or any other work you recognize. I do not give permission for my work to be shared on third-party sites, like Goodreads.  
> If you are inspired by any of these and wish to write it yourself, feel free, just please contact me first so I can enjoy them too. Other than that, none of these are complete nor will be, no chapters belong to the same ‘verse unless explicitly stated, hope you enjoy.

Whoops, missed the deadline for this event [KakaObiWeek2019], not that this was going anywhere anyway:

Me: sees KakaObi week coming up in February

Me: Nah, I’m probs not gonna do that

*lightly skims list*

*sees Sukea/Tobi*

Me: ...FUCK

\- - -

It’s easy to play the light-hearted, clumsy fool. After all, he used to be one.

Playing the fool is at once so very easy and so incredibly difficult.

Putting on the mask is simple.

Just a little face paint or a mask and some hair dye, and he’s like an entirely different person. Someone lighter, freer than he’s ever had the luxury of being, or more imposing than he could manage with his own face.

It’s nice, and fun, but temporary. It’s all an act.

-

Tobi visits Konoha from time to time, just to see. He doesn’t really have a better reason than that. He should have a better reason- he has work to do, lots to plan and oversee. An occasional jaunt to his old home-town figures absolutely nowhere into his plans.

His plans don’t require his presence every second of every day either, and with kamui he can be anywhere in the Elemental Nations in the blink of an eye.

So why not?

-

Kakashi doesn’t have any particular reason to be Sukea today. His cute little students are off today, and unless he wanders near the civilian district, the Uchiha compound, or a certain ramen stand, he’s unlikely to run into any of them anyway. He had fun teasing them last time, but right now he just wants to do something.

He needs to be outside, but he doesn’t want to run into anyone he knows and have to have a conversation about how he’s doing, or how his students are faring. He could use some genjutsu and hide himself that way, but that runs a certain element of risk. He’s proficient in illusions, but Kurenai is more skilled and if she came across him, she’d ask why he was hiding. So might a few other of his colleagues, who would be more intrigued because they’d caught him hiding.

Hiding in plain sight is the best solution.


	2. FAILED OMINOUS STATEMENTS GENERATOR PROMPTS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Found this [ominous statement generator.](https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/bl4y3z/ominous_statement_generator/) Tried playing with it a bit.

Kakashi: The curses plot revenge. So look away: they can still see you.

Naruto: The eyes are gone when you look away. So look away: they’ll whisper you your fate.

Naruto knows the feeling of eyes on his back intimately. It’s a skill he learned early, and one he learned well.

No matter how quick he turns or what tricks he tries, he never sees anyone looking back at him when he tries catching his watchers in the act. Oh, he catches plenty of villagers giving him dirty looks- they don’t try to hide their hatred for him in the slightest- but he can tell they’re not the ones who’s gaze prickles his skin and makes him wary and cautious.

Sasuke: The crows are not lost but waiting. Sleep well: they come ever faster.

He hates the very fact that humans require a certain amount of rest in order to function well. How inefficient, how illogical. What a tremendous waste of time, with dreaming a further indignity suffered on top of that.

Sakura: Your enemies are not what they seem. So look away; the clock ticks on.

It seems that more than anything, Sakura’s enemy has always been time.

Not enough time to catch Sasuke’s attention, not enough time to persuade Naruto to stay. Not enough time to catch up to either of their levels, just not enough anything is what Sakura feels she is some days.


	3. TIME-TRAVEL TEAM 7 MINUS KAKASHI GO TO THE FOUNDER'S ERA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tried to do a fic where Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto went on a grief-fueled bender after the war, wherein a lot more people died, and they decided drunkenly to fix it. Kept flip-flopping between crack and serious, and it's been sitting untouched for like, probably at least a year, so. Just reread it, and I've got nothing new for it, so I'm letting it go. It's clunky, but I think there are some okay parts, so I hope someone enjoys? Also, you'll be able to tell from my notes that I left in, but I have no idea if Tajima and Butsuma were alive by the point Izuna died. IDK, everything I know about Naruto post-Shippuden has been mostly absorbed through second-hand sources because it had been dragging on forever at that point and I fell out of the fandom for a bit before jumping back in. Still not super interested in that era though. Also-also, I definitely meant _something_ by the "title", but it's been so long at this point, hell if I know where I was going with that.

Team 7, “We’re going to save the world, because _fuck you_ , that’s why!” + fic title, “Living Well [Fuck You I Live(d)]  
[Uchiha Tajima is Madara’s dad’s name, Senju Butsuma is Hashirama’s]

-

After the war is over and the dust has settled, Team Seven- or what remains of it- sit down to share a meal and a drink.

They talk about what they won, briefly, and they talk for hours about what and (more importantly) _who_ they lost. They’ve finished more than one bottle in memory of their lost comrades- Sasuke has lost his new team before he could integrate them in with his original team and both he and Naruto mourn the end of their clans, and Sai and Tenzou, who were also lost before Sasuke could get to know them.

All three of them miss Kakashi, for all that they weren’t really his students for very long and didn’t learn much in that time anyway. They miss the sensei they had the longest- Iruka, back in the Academy- and the sannin, for all their flaws.

They decide that it’s a load of bullshit that most of the people they love are dead. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura are not Kakashi, who lived for most of his life with most of the people he loved dead and kept losing them and somehow managed to keep breathing and moving with no end in sight. They are not made of that sort of resilience, that kind of hopeless endurance.

Naruto never had loved ones until he was old enough to appreciate that.

Sasuke lost them all young and spent most of his time forcing himself to breathe so he could one day avenge them.

This is the first time Sakura’s lost people she loves and she refuses to accept it.

They all do. Belief is a powerful thing, and all of them refuse to believe they’ve lost.

They are all _very_ drunk, and that makes the decision easy.

They’re going to get revenge.

The only problem is, there’s no one left alive to get revenge _on_.

They all together can do it- Sakura has the immaculate chakra control, Naruto has the seals and the mass amount of chakra needed, Sasuke has the technique and bloodline connection to the past and none of them are short on determination- they’re going to go back, and everyone is going to _live_ and be _happy_ dammit.

They’re going to _fix_ things, and they’re not going to let anyone stop them.

-

Hashirama meets Madara by the banks of a river, and together they dream of peace. One day, their brothers and fathers follow them to the river and their dream almost dies a painful death in front of their eyes when Hashirama’s little brother kills Madara’s little brother.

That is not what happens this time.

-

Madara wants to close his eyes, but that would be unfair to his last brother, who is about to die. Instead, he forces himself to watch, even as he reaches out, knowing he’s too late.

He is convinced that Izuna is about to die, so when that is _not_ what happens, he is rather startled.

Instead, Tobirama is fended off by a man who looks rather similar to Izuna that he’s never seen before. A blond man is holding back Hashirama, while a woman with pink hair snarls in Madara’s face, fending him off with glowing green hands.

The three of them speak as one. “Enough.” They are not shrieking, yelling, or screaming, but everyone hears them regardless, and everyone stops in their tracks.

Enough _what_ , the three of them never say. They still manage to get their point across. These three are done with all of the fighting and killing, and if they have to beat that attitude into everyone’s heads, then so be it.

No one dares point out how that’s just a tad hypocritical after seeing exactly how strong the three of them are. Lightning is flying off of the Izuna’s look-alike’s blade, the blonde man is wearing a glowing cloak of chakra, and the woman just redirected the _river_ with an ax-kick.

Individually, they’re nigh unstoppable. Together? One can sooner stop the tides, or the sun from rising.

-

Shortly after the woman healed Izuna, he woke and started having a screaming fit about the Senju filth and the woman who healed Madara’s baby brother punched a fathoms-deep crater at his feet. No debris touched him and no cracks stretched under his feet, even with the immense destruction only feet away.

That amount of control and brute strength was immensely terrifying, but nothing compared to the flash of her angry green eyes when she snapped, “I said, _no more fighting._ ”

Izuna will deny it til the end of his days, but Madara was there to witness when he straightened to attention as best as he could on his cot and squeaked out a very respectful, “Yes, Ma’am.”

-

The Izuna lookalike follows the Senju home, seemingly for no reason other than cowing the weaker willed clan members into submission through fierce glares. Tobirama is not impressed, but he also has no more wish to fight this day, so he strategically retreats to his room- with his window open and his senses stretched wide to ensure he misses nothing.

Touka has the lookalike well in hand, and Tobirama has other things to focus on- like where the strangers came from in the first place, and why their chakra signatures are so _odd_ , and seem to be partially _mixed_ , and how something like that could happen in the first place.

-

The Uchiha and the Senju aren’t on speaking terms, but if they were, they would certainly wonder where the third member of this over-powerful team had disappeared to. As it was, they had no idea he was unaccounted for in the first place.

-

A few days later, the blonde shows up at the compound in a swarm of multiple copies of himself. He has multiplied a comically implausible amount of times, and every single version of him is chiding the clan head to leave the compound and meet with the Uchiha for peace talks.

Harried and surrounded, [again, is Butsuma alive at this point?], Hashirama and Tobirama arrive at the clearing next to the river.

Across the water, [Tajima?], Madara, and Izuna arrive as well, equally harried. The Izuna lookalike hovers behind the Senju, cutting off their escape route and behind the Uchiha lurks his pink-haired companion.

Another version of the blond multiplying menace is standing on top of the river smack-dab between the two groups, a sunny smile on his face and no sign of concern that he’s in the middle of a generations-long blood feud. Tobirama suspects this one is the original, if only because he generates enough chakra that it’s confusing to get a good read on any of the nearby shinobi’s chakra.


	4. SASUKE/NARUTO, MOVING SOULMARKS AU

Uchiha Sasuke is born with a small orange fox-kit curled tightly in a ball right on his round little tummy. It doesn’t open its eyes for the first several months of his life, and when it finally does during a devastating attack on the Village that loses them their fourth Hokage, its eyes are a brilliant blue that never fades.

At first, it’s a point of pride; clearly Sasuke’s soulmate will be cunning and clever, as benefits a good shinobi.

[awkward, rephrase]This is despite the Uchiha being a shinobi clan- shinobi in general don’t put much stock in soulmates, or Fate. At least, they try not to. On one hand, shinobi are tools, used for the betterment of their clans and villages; on the other, they’re discouraged because shinobi with soulmates from outside of their villages are one of the highest causes of spies and traitors.

However, shinobi are still human, regardless of how much some wish they weren’t, and are just as liable to fall susceptible to flights of fancy as the rest of the population. They just don’t admit it, or speak about it often. Still, it’s commonly, if quietly, agreed within the clan that the clan head’s second son’s soul mark is auspicious.[rephrase]

Mikoto is utterly convinced that it’s a reference to the Kyuubi, and therefore the Kyuubi’s jinchūriki, who is currently heavily pregnant with her own child and happens to be Mikoto’s best friend, Uzumaki Kushina. She’s quietly thrilled that their children might be soulmates, but as it’s a tad gauche to speak about soulmarks outside of family and clan, she hasn’t yet spoken about it to Kushina. She’s waiting until the other baby is born and she can find out whether or not the baby has a mark that could plausibly match Sasuke.

Then Kushina’s baby is coming, and the Kyuubi attacks.

The Uchiha are ordered to stand down, which they do with ill grace.

Minato dies.

Kushina dies.

Mikoto never gets to even hold the baby, who is surely the newest jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi. She’s more certain than ever that Sasuke’s match is Kushina’s son, but she’s got bigger concerns with how the Uchiha are being treated worse and worse by the day.

The matter of Sasuke’s mark is quietly dropped; Mikoto is bitterly certain she was right about his soul mate, but the Third won’t allow any Uchiha anywhere near the boy and so all she can do is bite back her betrayal and focus on her family.

No one speaks about it in the clan ever again. A few short years later, not even a full decade, and there is no clan to speak of anything.

Just Sasuke, who has no idea about any of the clan or his mother’s speculation.

-

Naruto doesn’t know what the moving pictures on people’s skin mean until after he starts at the Academy. Before that, it was just something that was, like the triangles on the Inuzuka’s clan members faces. No one ever told him anything, so how was he to know that the pictures that sometimes moved across people’s skin meant anything?

The world is covered in trees, and to Naruto, there’s nothing out there beyond the Wall. Sakura has a wild boar gamboling over her bare arms, no one likes Naruto, ramen is great; these things just are.

Due to the abundance of Hashirama trees surrounding the Village Hidden in the Leaves that he helped found, of course the world would seem to be covered in trees to a small boy who’s never left its walls.

Haruno Sakura’s soulmate is Yamanaka Ino, who is absolutely covered in cosmos flower buds.

[elaborate, there’s a class, he might spy on it? Before he figured out that school wasn’t going to be as good for him as he hoped]

At first he thinks the whiskers on his cheeks are the soul marks everyone talks about, but that doesn’t seem right. They never move, and he’s never once seen them change their color. Later, he thinks it might be the big ol’ swirly thing that shows up on his stomach when he channels chakra, but that doesn’t seem right either. Honestly, it kinda reminds him of the glimpses he’s managed to catch of storage seals, or maybe explosive seals. Either way, it’s not a soul mark- it doesn’t move.  
[elaborate]

-

Naruto joins Team Seven knowing Sakura’s soul mark, worn proudly on her bare arms for all to see, having heard rumors of Sasuke’s mark for years, and only able to even see one fourth of his sensei’s face, his exposed wrists, and the ends off his fingers, all of which are bare skin.

He still doesn’t have one of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why Naruto doesn't have a mark, and that's a large part of why this is being dumped here.  
> Also, I left some notes to myself in, and am aware it's a little rough.


	5. NARUTO STEPS SIDEWAYS INTO THE WRONG KONOHA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to 'Karma Chameleon' by the Culture Club the whole time I was writing this. And 'Wake me up before you go-go' by Wham! while posting.  
> I had an idea for a self-challenge collection, and that just didn't happen. I got this much done, and it feels self-contained enough that I'm good leaving it as-is. There will be no more.  
> I will mention, I'm vaguely aware that there was an alternate Konoha in one of the movies? This is not that Konoha.

Naruto takes two steps out of Ichiraku Ramen, and immediately stumbles over nothing. When he’s straightened himself up, he’s facing a familiar face across the street. Confused, he reaches out his chakra to what looks like his errant clone, only the chakra he feels doesn’t feel quite like his own.

He knows from long experience creating shadow clones what his chakra feels like to others. His chakra is a maelstrom, wind swirling in a rush around anyone else reaching out to meet it. Gently and playfully most of the time. Sakura-chan’s described it before as a warm autumn breeze blowing her hair into her face. Usually, she means that kindly.

When he’s angry, his chakra’s wind is edged, cutting like a million sharp-edged knives. When he works with Kurama, he’s been told it feels like the prevailing wind coming off of a wildfire, urging it to higher and higher heights.

This chakra, coming off of someone with his face, doesn’t feel anything like any of that.

He looks closer. On second thought, while the face looking back at him is built along similar lines and shares the same colouring, the differences are abundant. The eyes are lighter, less burdened. The hair, while just as yellow as his, is cut painfully short, just like he used to wear it when he was a genin, before he started growing it out. This stranger doesn’t have the same whiskers on his cheeks, he’s slightly taller, and he isn’t even wearing any orange.

Whoever decided to impersonate him hasn’t done a very good job of it.

“Hey!” he calls out, all friendly-like. For now. “What’s the big idea?!” Alright, so not terribly friendly-like.

“What?” The stranger says, like he doesn’t know the face he’s put on looks almost exactly like Naruto’s.

The stranger goes to say something, before he’s cut off by a Sasuke look-alike coming up behind him and placing a restraining hand on his shoulder.

Whoever it was that decided to impersonate him and Sasuke, they’ve done a horrible job, especially the one pretending to be Sasuke. For one thing, he’s _smiling_. Widely. With _teeth_. It looks _sincere_.

Naruto represses a shudder.

He looks at the two imposters in front of him, knowing that no one who’s even met him and Sasuke briefly would fall for that nonsense. He feels their chakra, places them at squarely mid-genin level threat, so he’s not needed to stop them right now. Then Naruto nopes right on out of the situation he’s found himself in, taking to the roofs.

Kakashi-sensei would know what to do about this, right? Right?!?

-

It turns out Kakashi-sensei can’t be found. Naruto checked his apartment, but it was laid out entirely different and didn’t have Mr. Ukki or smell like wet dog at _all_. He tried checking all the training grounds he knows Kakashi-sensei usually has challenges with Gai-sensei at, but neither of them were there.  
He even looked at the memorial stone training grounds, which was weird too! It was much shorter than he remembered it being, and the training ground itself felt a bit… unused. They must have replaced the poles recently or something, because they weren’t even scorched anymore, and weren’t as worn down as the ones he’s used to. He’ll have to thank Yamato-sensei the next time he sees him, it was nice of him to freshen the place up. He even replaced the red bridge, which was looking a bit sad lately.

Naruto stared for a bit before turning to head to the hospital, a place he normally avoided at all costs but knew Sakura could be found at this time of day. He spun a bit abruptly and almost bumped into someone who managed to dodge at the last second.

The other man was tall, had white hair, and was built like a scarecrow, but that was about all he had in common with Kakashi-sensei. This guy had long hair tied low at the back of his neck, carried a tanto, and wasn’t even wearing a _mask_. He didn’t have a scar across his eye either, but aside from that, he and Kakashi-sensei could have been brothers.

Eh, maybe cousins.

Regardless, Naruto mumbled out an apology and hurried along. He had to find Sakura, quick! What the hell was going on around here?!

-

On his way to the hospital, Naruto noticed a lot of things around the Village were different than he remembered them being just that morning. For one, he’d already gotten turned around twice trying to find the hospital, which was really weird, because he _knows_ that it’s right behind the Hokage tower. Another thing different is the amount of strangers he’s seen today.

Now, Naruto can’t claim to know every single person who lives in Konoha. It _is_ the largest Hidden Village.

However, he’s been training with Granny to take over her position someday soon, and he’d like to say at this point he knows _most_ of the villagers. Even the civilians. So he’s a little confused. Did they get a sudden influx of refugees or something?

Then he glances up at the Hokage Mountain to try and orient himself because he’s somehow gotten turned around _again_ \- and stops short in the middle of the road.

Make that a _lot_ confused, because Granny isn’t on the mountain.

-

Now, Naruto’s never been what you might call the sharpest kunai in the pouch, but he’s no longer the dead-last either. It takes him a little while to realize, because it’s just so far out there, but eventually, he does piece together that while he _is_ in Konoha, it isn’t _his_ Konoha.

That presents a problem.

-

Naruto takes to camping out in the Forest of Death, because it’s a lot less dangerous here than it is in his own world. People still seem to avoid it with the same amount of overzealous caution though, and he would like to avoid any more awkward run-ins while he figures out his next step.

Mainly, to figure out how the hell he got here in the first place, and more importantly, how to go _home._


End file.
